Session VA5

Intelligent Manufacturing Process Tool For Plastic Injection Molding

Aravind Kumbakonam, Terrence L. Chambers, Suren N. Dwivedi

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Louisiana, Lafayette

Bill Best

Ash Industries

Abstract
This paper presents an overview of ongoing research aimed at the development of a Computer-
Based Intelligent Manufacturing Process Tool, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The
Manufacturing Process Tool is a computer program, which would help the manufacturer in
solving problems associated with Injection Molding. These problems include long process set up
time, non-optimized cycle time, and poor control of the molding process. The Manufacturing
Process Tool would eventually help the machine operator (who need not be an expert) in setting
up, optimizing, and controlling the Injection Molding Process; thus maximizing the production
rate on that particular Injection Molding machine.

Introduction

Plastic Injection Molding is the world’s most common method of producing complex
commercial plastic parts with excellent dimensional tolerance. According to the C-mold design
guide, 32% by weight of all plastics processed go through Injection Molding machines, making
Plastic Injection Molding one of the most important manufacturing processes2. It is seen that the
final molded part quality is chiefly dependent on the type of material, mold design and the
molding process settings. Once the material and the mold to be used are specified, the part
quality basically depends on the molding process. The molding process is quite complex
involving many variable process parameters like pressure, temperature and time settings. These
process parameters have to be optimally set in order to improve part quality and maximize the
production capacity of the Injection Molding machine. Educated and experienced individuals
are required to set up and optimize such a complex process. These individuals control the
molding process on a trial and error basis, which is usually time consuming. This method of
controlling the molding process relies heavily on operator intuition and a few “rules of thumb,”
which the operator develops over a period of time while working with different materials,
pressures, temperatures and time settings.

This paper presents an outline of ongoing research at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
involving the development of Intelligent Knowledge-Based Engineering Modules (IKEM) for

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
the Injection Molding process. IKEM has different modules, namely: Parsing, Mold Design,
Cycle Time and the Manufacturing module, which are linked to each other. This paper mainly
concentrates on the Manufacturing module, which involves the development of an Intelligent
Manufacturing Process Tool called “The Optimizer.” Figure 1 and 2 show the transfer of data
between the different modules of IKEM.

Material MOLD DESIGN

Database MODULE

PARSING
MANUFACTURING DATA TRANSFER MODULE
MODULE

Machine
CYCLE TIME
database
MODULE

Expert system
Figure 1.Intelligent Knowledge Base Engineering Modules For Plastic Injection Molding

Figure 2. Data Flow Diagram

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
The Optimizer captures non-deterministic knowledge in the Injection Molding process from an
expert in this field, and also uses deterministic knowledge available in the form of relations, look
up tables, etc. The Optimizer is written in Visual Basic, and would assist the machine operator
in setting up, optimizing and controlling the Injection Molding Process and thus maximize the
production rate on that particular Injection Molding machine. As shown in Figure3, The
Optimizer helps the manufacturer in the set up of the molding machine, by giving him the initial
optimal process parameter values. These values could be later fine tuned for personal benefits
by the operator using his intuition and guesswork.

Final Product

Time
Fine-tuning

Initial Process
Setup

Design stage Manufacturing stage

Product Development
Figure 3. Product Development Vs Time

Knowledge-Based Engineering Modules

An expert system, or a knowledge-based system, is defined as “a model and associated procedure
that exhibits, within a specific domain, a degree of expertise in problem solving that is
comparable to that of a human expert5.” Of the different kinds of expert systems available,
which have their individual advantages and disadvantages, the “Rule Based” type of knowledge-
based system is the one that is most commonly used. It basically consists of a knowledge base,
containing a set of “IF-THEN” statements, called “rules.”

The IKEM project deals with creating an expert system containing a set of IF-THEN rules
collected from the human expert with the help of knowledge engineers. Two of the most
important issues that are essential to the reliability of this rule-based type expert system are, the
Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Representation.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
Knowledge Acquisition

This is the initial approach wherein the knowledge engineers extract the rules from the human
expert. This step is quite labor intensive, and has been considered the bottleneck in the expert
system development process. Knowledge acquisition mainly depends on the skills of the
knowledge engineer. His primary aim is to extract strategies or rules of thumb from the human
expert(s) and transfer it to the knowledge base. Care has to be taken during the knowledge
acquisition process, as it directly affects the knowledge representation scheme, later. It’s seen
that there are two basic types of Knowledge Acquisition:

1. Knowledge Acquisition directly from the human expert (non deterministic knowledge)
2. Knowledge Acquisition thorough previous cases, relations, look up tables (deterministic
knowledge).

The Intelligent Manufacturing Tool being developed intends to capture non–deterministic

knowledge which is gained by experience in the field, as well as more deterministic knowledge
available in the form of relations, look up tables, etc.

A student knowledge engineer from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has been working in
conjunction with Ash Industries, Lafayette, which is primarily a Plastic Injection Molding plant.
The knowledge engineer interviews the human expert at Ash Industry. He then organizes this
extracted data in a logical fashion. This knowledge extracted from the expert is in the form of
heuristics, or more precisely “rules of thumb.” The expert develops these heuristics or rules of
thumb intuitionally and from his prior experience in this field. These “rules of thumb” act as the
guidelines, using which; the molding process is operated for the most optimal product quality.

A typical example of a set of “rules of thumb” or heuristics developed by the expert useful
in the calculation of clamp tonnage is:

Rule 1: IF part wall thickness >= 0.04 inch

And material = crystalline
THEN clamp tonnage = 2.0 ton/ inch2 *

Rule 2: IF part wall thickness < 0.04 inch

And material = crystalline
THEN clamp tonnage = 2.6 ton/inch2

Rule 3: IF part wall thickness >= 0.04 inch

And material = amorphous
THEN clamp tonnage = 3.0 ton/inch2

Rule 4: IF part wall thickness < 0.04 inch

And material = amorphous
THEN clamp tonnage =3.6 ton/inch2
* Inch2 represents the cross sectional area of the total number of parts in the mold that are
perpendicular to the nozzle of the injection molding machine.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
To this rule set we add a couple more rules, to determine whether the material selected is
amorphous or crystalline. Using these six rules the expert system calculates the required clamp
tonnage.

Rule 5: IF mold shrink, linear flow rate** of the material < 12

THEN material = amorphous.

Rule 6: IF mold shrink, linear flow rate of the material >= 12

THEN material = crystalline.

Knowledge Representation

Knowledge Representation is the second stage of the knowledge engineering process, wherein
the knowledge acquired is coded into the Knowledge Base. The heuristics obtained by the
knowledge engineer from the human expert are represented in the knowledge base using IF-
THEN rules so that conclusions can be drawn by the expert system. These IF-THEN rules are
then coded in VISUAL BASIC. A separate material database is created in Microsoft Access
and then linked with the Visual Basic program. This is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Access to Visual Basic Linkage

** Mold shrink, linear flow rate obtained from the material database.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
 The Outputs

The Optimizer gives out the most optimized values of different parameters affecting the Injection
Molding process, which have to be controlled in order to ensure that a high quality part is
produced in the most economical way. The outputs of The Optimizer could be confined to four
different categories, namely: the Temperature, Pressure, and Time And Distance. Each of these
outputs are represented in Figure 5 and discussed in detail below.

Temperature:

Approximately 80% of the plastic products produced today are made of thermoplastics.
Thermoplastics could be defined as “ plastic materials which, when heated, undergoes physical
change1.”

The different types of thermoplastics are:

• Amorphous materials, “ which basically soften as the temperature is increased and get
softer and softer as more heat is absorbed, until they degrade1.”

• Crystalline materials, “ these don’t have a softening stage but they stay firm until they are
heated to a particular point at which they start to melt and later degrade if more heat is
added1. ”

INPUTS
OUTPUTS
Clamp tonnage
User input
• Machine data
• Material etc Injection pressure

Hold pressure
Parsing program
•Part surface area Melt, Mold, Nozzle,
Barrel temperatures
•Part dimensions
Shot size
Mold design MANUFACTURING
•Flow length PROCESS Distance between 2
OPTIMIZER halves of the mold
•Type of Gate
•Gate dimensions Screw Speed &
•Sprue dimensions Screw recovery time

Cooling time

Cycle time
Back Pressure

Figure 5. The Optimizer.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
Considering the differences in the properties of amorphous and crystalline materials, we set the
different temperatures in the Injection Molding machine.

1. Melt temperature: The temperature to which plastic material has to be heated before it is
injected into the mold. Optimizing the melt temperature results in controlling the flow
rate of the material, material degradation, brittleness and flashing.
2. Barrel temperatures: The different temperatures to be set at the rear, middle and the front
end of the barrel of the injection-molding machine.
3. Nozzle temperature: The temperature set at the machine nozzle, which is right in front of
the heating zone (barrel) of the plastic.
4. Mold temperature: The temperature at which the injection mold has to be set to obtain a
plastic part of high quality with a lower cycle time. The optimized mold temperature
helps in obtaining reduced cycle time and better part quality having a glossy finish, less
warp and less shrinkage.

Pressure:

There are various pressures to be optimized in the Injection-Molding machine.

1. Clamp Pressure: The amount of pressure to hold the injection mold tightly against the
injection pressure. The optimal clamp pressure prevents the mold from flashing due to
less clamp tonnage. It even saves energy and the mold from collapsing due to high clamp
tonnage.
2. Injection Pressure: The amount of pressure required to produce the initial filling (95%)
of the mold cavity. The optimized injection pressure helps to attain a part of high quality,
less shrinkage, less warp, and that is easy to eject.
3. Holding Pressure: The second stage of the injection pressure, and usually fills up the
remaining 5% of the mold cavity. It is usually needed to hold the plastic in the mold,
from flowing back into the barrel.
4. Back Pressure: The pressure exerted by the plastic on the screw spindle. Optimized
backpressure helps in obtaining a part of better density and fewer voids.

Time:

• Cooling time: It is the amount of time required by the plastic part in the mold cavity to
solidify and get ejected safely. The optimized cooling time helps in achieving better
cycle time.

Distance:

• Mold open distance: The distance for the mold halves to open apart in order to eject the
part safely. Optimal mold open distance is necessary for better cycle time.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education
 Conclusion
The Manufacturing Process Tool, which has been discussed in this paper, is being developed at
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. When completed this Tool will be able to give the
initial optimal process parameter values, which are crucial to start off the injection molding
process. These values could be later fine tuned for personal benefits by the operator using his
intuition and guesswork.

References

1. Douglas M.B., Fundamentals of Injection Molding: Material Selection and Product Design Fundamentals,
Vol. 2, Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
2. C-MOLD Design Guide. - A Resource for Plastic Engineers.
3. Dym. J. B., Injection Molds and Molding, 2nd edition, Van Nostrand Reinhold.
4. Xinming Jin, Xuefeng Zhu, “Process Parameters Setting Using Case-Based and Fuzzy Reasoning for
Injection Molding.” Proceedings of the 3rd World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation. June
28-July 2, 2000, Hefei, P.R. China.
5. Ignizio J. P., Introduction to Expert Systems: The Development and Implementation of Rule-Based Expert
Systems, Mc Graw Hill.
6. Bob Hatch, On the Road with Bob Hatch: 100 Injection Molding problems solved by IMM’s
Troubleshooter, Injection Molding Magazine.
7. Mok S.L, Kwong. C.K,Lau. W.S “ Review of research in the determination of process parameters for
plastic injection molding.” Advances in Polymer Technology, V 18, n 3, 1999, p 225-236.
8. Shelesh-Nezhad. K, Siores, E. “Intelligent system for plastic injection molding process design.”
Proceedings of 1996 3rd Asia Pacific Conference on Materials Processing, Nov 12-14 1996, Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, p 458-462
9. Yeung.V.W.S., Lau.K.H., “ Injection Molding, ‘C-MOLD’ CAE package, Process Parameter Design and
Quality Function Deployment: A case study of intelligent materials processing.” Published in Journal of
Materials Processing Technology.

ARAVIND KUMBAKONAM
Mr. Kumbakonam is a graduate student of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette. He had done his B.S. form Bangalore Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India. His areas of research
include Design, Solid Modeling, Artificial Intelligence and Supply Chain Management.

SUREN N. DWIVEDI
Dr. Dwivedi is the Endowed chair Professor of Manufacturing in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His research interests include Integrated Product and Process Development
(IPPD), Concurrent Engineering, Manufacturing Systems, and CAD/CAM.

TERRENCE L. CHAMBERS
Dr. Chambers is an Assistant Professor and the Mechanical Engineering/LEQSF Regents Professor in Mechanical
Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His research interests include design optimization, artificial
intelligence. He is a member of ASME and ASEE, and is currently serving as the Vice-President of the ASEE Gulf-
Southwest Section. Prof. Chambers is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and Louisiana.

BILL BEST
Mr. Bill Best is currently working as a plant manager at Ash Industries in Lafayette, LA. He is an expert in the field
of injection molding having an experience of more than 40 years in this field.

Proceedings Of 2002 ASEE Gulf- Southwest Annual Conference,

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 20-22,2002
Copyright @ 2002, American Society for Engineering Education